Soldiers -- Fiction; War stories; World War, 1914-1918 -- Fiction
“I came to see a man who was going to tell me how I could get to Rumania
with the Red Cross.... But that can wait.... Let's get out of here. God,
I was afraid you hadn't made it.”
“I had to crawl on my belly and lick people's boots to do it.... God, it
was low!... But here I am.”
They were out in the street again, walking and gesticulating.
“But 'Libertad, Libertad, allons, ma femme!' as Walt Whitman would have
said,” shouted Andrews.
“It's one grand and glorious feeling.... I've been here three days. My
section's gone home; God bless them.”
“But what do you have to do?”
“Do? Nothing,” cried Henslowe. “Not a blooming bloody goddam thing! In
fact, it's no use trying... the whole thing is such a mess you couldn't
do anything if you wanted to.”
“I want to go and talk to people at the Schola Cantorum.”
“There'll be time for that. You'll never make anything out of music if
you get serious-minded about it.”
“Then, last but not least, I've got to get some money from somewhere.”
“Now you're talking!” Henslowe pulled a burnt leather pocket book out
of the inside of his tunic. “Monaco,” he said, tapping the pocket book,
which was engraved with a pattern of dull red flowers. He pursed up
his lips and pulled out some hundred franc notes, which he pushed into
Andrews's hand.
“Give me one of them,” said Andrews.
“All or none.... They last about five minutes each.”
“But it's so damn much to pay back.”
“Pay it back--heavens!... Here take it and stop your talking. I probably
won't have it again, so you'd better make hay this time. I warn you
it'll be spent by the end of the week.”
“All right. I'm dead with hunger.”
“Let's sit down on the Boulevard and think about where we'll have lunch
to celebrate Miss Libertad.... But let's not call her that, sounds like
Liverpool, Andy, a horrid place.”
“How about Freiheit?” said Andrews, as they sat down in basket chairs in
the reddish yellow sunlight.
“Treasonable... off with your head.”
“But think of it, man,” said Andrews, “the butchery's over, and you and
I and everybody else will soon be human beings again. Human; all too
human!”
“No more than eighteen wars going,” muttered Henslowe.
“I haven't seen any papers for an age.... How do you mean?”
“People are fighting to beat the cats everywhere except on the' western
front,” said Henslowe. “But that's where I come in. The Red Cross sends
supply trains to keep them at it.... I'm going to Russia if I can work
it.”
“But what about the Sorbonne?”
“The Sorbonne can go to Ballyhack.”
“But, Henny, I'm going to croak on your hands if you don't take me
somewhere to get some food.”
“Do you want a solemn place with red plush or with salmon pink brocade?”
“Why have a solemn place at all?”
“Because solemnity and good food go together. It's only a religious
restaurant that has a proper devotion to the belly. O, I know, we'll go
over to Brooklyn.”
“Where?”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account